Sunday, September 30, 2012

Global CCS Institute Pleads for Less Renewables Support

In a recent address before the European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy, Brad Page, CEO of the Global CCS Institute, made the case that public support for renewable energy is working against CCS development. Speaking before the energy office's "CCS Roundtable: Addressing the Short-Term Challenges for the CCS Demonstration Program," Page asserted that "government action to encourage renewable energy is distorting the operation of otherwise efficient energy markets. It also distorts the development of new and emerging technologies often favouring ultimately more expensive alternatives. Increasingly CCS appears to be a victim of this reality." He continued: "In our view, government policy to support the development and deployment of low and zero emission technologies ... should move back from favouring particular technologies. Policy settings need to be more neutral." The Institute is not simply an interest group active in European energy policy, but serves as the official secretariat for the European CCS Demonstration Project Network, so it will be interesting to see what repercussions if any follow from this speech.